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E.U. Presses Google to Delay Privacy Policy Changes

BRUSSELS — European governments, supported by the top justice official in the European Union, are pressing Google to halt coming changes to its privacy policies while they investigate the implications for personal data protection.

The move is a shot across the bow for a range of companies, including Facebook, that rely on the European market of 500 million people for a hefty chunk of their business. It comes amid a new drive to make privacy protection in Europe — where people are generally more wary than Americans about surveillance by companies and governments — more coherent and efficient.

Viviane Reding, the E.U. justice commissioner, called on European authorities Friday “to ensure that E.U. law is fully complied with in Google’s new privacy policy.”

She was backing a request sent Thursday by national data protection authorities to Google, asking that the search engine company suspend its plans to change its privacy policies on March 1 while they conduct an inquiry into the implications for citizens and users.

The authorities wrote to Larry Page, the chief executive of Google, to “call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and E.U. citizens.”

Ms. Reding said Friday that the investigation would help give “legal certainty for citizens and businesses.”

The European action follows the announcement by Google in late January that it would combine about 60 privacy policies for separate products to create a simple system for users that also satisfied the wishes of regulators.

The changes also would mean that Google could use information shared on one Google service in other Google services for people logged into a Google account. For example, Google could guide a user who had looked for recipes using the Google search engine to relevant cooking videos the next time that person signed in to YouTube, which is also owned by Google.

The company said Friday that it was prepared to answer any questions raised by the investigation but gave no indication that it would delay the changes. Instead, it suggested that any delay instituting the new policy would harm rather than help the 350 million users it had already notified about the changes.

“As part of announcing our new privacy policy, we’ve made the largest communication to users in our history,” said Alistair Verney, a Google spokesman in Europe. “Delaying the new policy would cause significant confusion.”

The French data privacy regulator, known as CNIL, is conducting the investigation on behalf of 26 other E.U. governments. CNIL said Friday that there was no formal deadline for completing the inquiry. “Of course, we’re going to try to do it as quickly as possible,” said Gwendal Le Grand, an official at CNIL.

He said the timing would depend on how long it took investigators to sift through the changes and evaluate the implications, and on how long it took Google to respond to further questions.

The investigation is the clearest sign so far of a new drive to streamline privacy protection in Europe. That effort, led by Ms. Reding, would require national authorities to delegate a single country, most likely where a company is based, to conduct privacy investigations.

Google has opened a large office in Paris, but the company said its European headquarters were in Dublin.

Mr. Le Grand, the French official, said his agency had the power to fine companies up to €100,000, or about $132,000, for a first offense and up to €300,000 for repeat offenses.

But the fact that a member state is conducting the inquiry, rather than E.U. authorities in Brussels, illustrates how European laws remain a hodgepodge, particularly in the area of justice and home affairs.

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Under a new law proposed by Ms. Reding, which still must be approved by the European Parliament and E.U. governments, member states still would lead such investigations.

Ms. Reding would get added power under the new law to sue a member state that conducted an inquiry improperly, for example by failing to delegate an investigation to a single authority in Europe, like the French agency, or by failing to take into account her opinion or the opinions of other governments.

The investigation into Google also seems to reflect a degree of coordination with like-minded counterparts in the U.S. Congress.

Eight members of the House of Representatives, including Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, and Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent Mr. Page a formal request for information about Google’s new privacy policy on Jan. 26. The letter contained 11 questions about the new policy, including whether consumers could opt out of the new system, either globally or on a product-by-product basis.

The privacy policy investigation is just the latest challenge to Google in Europe. The European Commission, the E.U. executive agency, already is investigating the giant Internet search and advertising company for possible breaches of antitrust laws. The commission could send formal charges to Google this spring.

The commission also is considering whether to approve the purchase by Google of Motorola Mobility, a maker of smartphones.

In recent years European authorities have also been disturbed by the way Google has treated privacy issues in Germany and in other countries related to its Street View mapping service and by the ramifications of Google’s project to digitize books.

The letter sent to Google on Thursday came from a so-called Article 29 Working Party representing the 27 national data protection authorities across the Union. The group’s name comes from the E.U. directive on data protection that established it.

“Given the wide range of services you offer, and popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the E.U. member states,” Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the working party and of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, wrote to Mr. Page. “We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated procedure,” Mr. Kohnstamm wrote.

In a three-page response posted on Friday afternoon on Google’s Web site, Peter Fleischer, the global privacy counsel for Google, wrote that there had been “misconceptions that have been spread about these changes by some of our competitors.”

Mr. Fleischer explained that the company had briefed data authorities across the European Union before the announcement and that at “no stage did any E.U. regulator suggest that any sort of pause would be appropriate.”

David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris.

A version of this article appears in print on February 4, 2012, on Page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Google Is Asked to Delay Privacy Shift. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe